The legislature’s Economics Committee yesterday passed a non-binding resolution demanding that state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) transform the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市), into a liquefied natural gas (LNG) power plant.
The resolution, initiated by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中), asked the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) to change the plant into a natural gas plant.
Taking lessons from the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the US and last year’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster in Japan, Ting said the power plant should be changed into a thermal power plant as was done to the William H. Zimmer nuclear plant in Moscow, Ohio, in 1991.
Since the plant is only 20km to 30km away from Taipei, Ting emphasized that a nuclear disaster would devastate the nation’s densely populated north.
The controversial nuclear plant has been under construction since 1997 and is a financial burden on the country, Ting said, adding that the government has already poured more than NT$100 billion (US$3.41 billion) into it.
Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said during the question-and-answer session yesterday that the ministry would need to conduct a thorough assessment of the proposal.
A cost-benefit analysis is required before undertaking the proposal, especially since the cost of generating electricity with nuclear energy is less than NT$2 per kilowatt-hour, about NT$2 less than that with LNG, he said.
Chai Fu-feng (蔡富豐), the chief nuclear energy engineer of Taipower’s power generation department, said it is not feasible to make the conversion.
“Moreover, it will be challenging to build a natural gas pipeline, which will take more than 10 years to complete,” Chai said. “It will cost a lot more to purchase new equipment for the new plant.”
The proposal is to be passed to the legislature for final approval.
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS